BART seeking state permission to shut down walkway...

1of2People walk past a person sleeping on the ground at Civic Center BART Station, which is often overrun with the homeless and people using drugs.Photo: Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle

2of2One person injects another with a needle on a syringe along Market Street outside an entrance to the Civic Center / UN Plaza Station on Friday, April 27, 2018 in San Francisco, Calif.Photo: Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle

BART officials are planning to seek permission from the State Fire Marshal’s Office to shut down an entrance and walkway to the underground Civic Center Station that has become a haven for drug users.

“It’s ground zero for injection drug use,” said BART Director Bevan Dufty, whose San Francisco district includes the troubled station.

The proposed closure of the walkway under Market Street is the latest in a series of steps BART and city officials have undertaken in an effort to clean up San Francisco stations. Both Civic Center and 16th Street Mission stations have become magnets for the homeless and the mentally ill, and the sites of injection drug use in recent years.

The problem hit the boiling point recently when local TV stations aired videos showing people openly shooting up drugs in the Civic Center walkway. After seeing the embarrassing video on the news, Mayor Mark Farrell called a meeting with BART officials at City Hall that resulted in increased police patrols of the station.

When more video appeared a few days later showing little had changed, Dufty set up a makeshift “office” inside the station and called in the media to highlight the problem.

“Yes, it was meant to get attention, but I can’t tell you how many people came up and said, ‘Thanks for being here,’” Dufty said.

The Salvation Army was also on hand and took four homeless people to its detox and recovery program.

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Dufty, a former San Francisco supervisor with an eye for publicity, has made a mini-crusade of cleaning up BART stations.

He was. And as a result, BART assigned a full-time janitor and attendants to help keep the station’s elevators clean and safe.

For years, a combination of budget cuts, understaffing and concerns about targeting the homeless kept station upkeep and safety on the back burner at BART. But as ridership on off hours and weekends began to drop, the attitude has changed.

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